Yeah, pretty much all teams at Microsoft use the WiX toolset to create their MSI files.
And yes, both Office and Visual Studio (and Expression and SQL Server and Windows Live Essentials) have built their own bootstrapper/chainers. All of those served as input into (and a few were influenced by) the design of Burn. There is an opportunity cost for those big teams to switch to Burn that I don't know they will pay (now that theirs work) except for VS and maybe Expression. VS is moving to Burn now. At this point in time, Burn is extremely flexible platfrom but with that flexibility comes more cost. You can build something that looks like any of those installs mentioned above. The question is how much work you want to expend. The WiX toolset v3.6 will ship with a simple but complete system for those that works for. If you need something really custom, you'll have to write more code. In future releases of the WiX toolset, we'll extend the customizations of the higher layers to reduce the amount of code people need to write to create more custom installs. Documenting how to get started with Burn is my task for today and hopefully useful content will show up in the WiX v3.6 build this week. -- virtually, Rob Mensching - http://RobMensching.com LLC On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 6:52 AM, Nick Ball <nick.b...@grantadesign.com>wrote: > Well summed up Rob! > > Am I right in thinking that both Office and Visual Studio use WiX for > creation of MSI's, or at least some of them, with an additional proprietary > UI that handles the installation experience? A while back I took a good dig > into the Office installer and was very impressed at how it seemed to work. > If Burn gives us anything like this flexibility, I will be happy indeed. > > A simpler example that I also liked was the Expression Suite installer - > written in WPF and aggregated all the component parts into one neat looking > UI (although I think that added an ARP entry for each product). > > -Nick > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] > Sent: 05 January 2011 07:26 > To: chr...@deploymentengineering.com; General discussion for Windows > Installer XML toolset. > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Burn issue > > IMHO, the Visual Studio install is an absolute mess. I hope to get the > opportunity to really tackle some of the worst parts of the Visual Studio > install as part of my day job. The task is incredibly daunting so we'll see > what I'm allowed to do (and what the business prevents me from "fixing"). > > Instead of talking about Visual Studio, let's look at Office. I worked with > K on some of the early Office 2007 install design based on early thoughts > of > Burn (remember, Burn as an idea has been around for years and years > <sigh/>). > > In a big Office product (like "Professional Plus") there are over 15 MSI > packages installed. You'll get something like 10 more MSI packages added > for > each "language bundle". The initial install is a single experience that > creates a single entry in Add/Remove Programs. Remove the "Office 2010 > Professional Plus" ARP entry and all those MSIs (that you can't see) are > removed. Repair and patching works similarly seamlessly. > > It's, IMHO, beautiful and that is what Burn is striving for. > > Now, sometimes you should leave things behind. NETFX and CRT are two things > that are massively shared and have really bad repercussions if you > prematurely remove them so they probably deserve to have separate ARP > entries (or maybe they shouldn't so users never try to remove them, hmm). > > However, most packages should be properly reference counted (something Burn > is not yet doing, the bug is open) and managed the way Office is. > > On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Christopher Painter < > chr...@deploymentengineering.com> wrote: > > > > > Rob, > > > > That's an interesting comment but it makes me think of the Visual Studio > > experience. It's a seamless experience installing a bunch of packages > but > > the result is the same. You pretty much have to reformat to get back to > the > > original state. Either that or run through lengthy complicated > procedures > > to get it all off. > > > > Now with Visual Studio that normally isn't such a bad thing since > > generally everything it installs are things that I actually want where as > > with products like iTunes ( and others ) many of the things are not > always > > things that I actually want. > > > > So back to burn... how does it manage the uninstall experience? If > Visual > > Studio was done with Burn, would it have a "take it all off" experience? > > > > Chris > > > > Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog > > Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves > > attention? E-Mail Me > > > > > > --- On Tue, 1/4/11, Rob Mensching <r...@robmensching.com> wrote: > > > > > From: Rob Mensching <r...@robmensching.com> > > > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Burn issue > > > To: "General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset." < > > wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > > > Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2011, 10:39 AM > > > Maybe. It's not really in the model > > > Burn was designed for. Burn was intended > > > to provide a seamless installation experience not pop up a > > > bunch of > > > different installation wizards. > > > > > > Many years ago my wife got an iPod shuffle as a present. To > > > use it we had to > > > install iTunes. The install was such a mishmash of > > > disparate installation > > > packages that by the time it was done I was sure the only > > > way to get the > > > machine back to normal would be to format it. Burn is > > > designed to provide > > > the antithesis of that experience. <smile/> > > > > > > -- > > > virtually, Rob Mensching - > > > http://RobMensching.com<http://robmensching.com/>LLC > > > > > > On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Sean Farrow > > > <sean.far...@seanfarrow.co.uk>wrote: > > > > > > > Could this be added? > > > > Cheers > > > > Sean. > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] > > > > Sent: 03 January 2011 16:29 > > > > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML > > > toolset. > > > > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Burn issue > > > > > > > > No. Burn doesn't show the UI from the MSIs. > > > > > > > > On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 3:28 AM, Sean Farrow < > > sean.far...@seanfarrow.co.uk > > > > >wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi: > > > > > I'm using Burn as a container to hold two msi's. > > > > > I'd like to use the ui's from the msi in the > > > current implementation. > > > > > If I remove the bootstrapApplicationRef element I > > > get a lght0001: the > > > > > given key is not in the dictionary. > > > > > Is there anyway to use the ui from the original > > > msi? > > > > > Any help appreciated. > > > > > Sean. > > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > -------- Learn how Oracle Real Application > > > Clusters (RAC) One Node > > > > > allows customers to consolidate database storage, > > > standardize their > > > > > database environment, and, should the need arise, > > > upgrade to a full > > > > > multi-node Oracle RAC database without downtime > > > or disruption > > > > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > WiX-users mailing list > > > > > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > > > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows > customers > to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, > and, > should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database > without downtime or disruption > http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and, should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database without downtime or disruption http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
